QuickShow Help
QuickShow Light Help Index

QuickShow Light for Windows

FROM ALCHEMY MINDWORKS INC.

Contents

Instructions

Default Display Characteristics

Specific Display Characteristics

Loading and Saving Show Files

Other Functions

File Formats

Technical Support

Registration

QuickShow for Windows -- Heavy

Legal Dogma


Instructions

When you first boot up QuickShow Light for Windows, you will see a listing of all the files in your current directory which QuickShow Light knows how to display. The button bar at the top of the QuickShow window provides access to its commonly used functions. These functions are duplicated in its menu items as well.

You can change directories from within QuickShow Light for Windows by double-clicking on a drive or directory entry, or by opening the Change Directory dialog from the File menu.

Only tagged files will be displayed. You can tag individual files by clicking once on them. Clicking a second time will untag previously tagged files. You can tag all the files in a directory by clicking on the Tag All button.

With one or more files tagged, click on the Show button to begin your slide show. There will be a brief wait while your first file is loaded. Note that this is not a nag screen... it takes a few seconds for the first image to load.

Left to its own devices, QuickShow will display each of your tagged images and then return you to the main QuickShow window. You can abort a slide show by clicking once with the right button of your mouse. There will be a brief delay while QuickShow does some housekeeping.

Note that if your images don't display correctly you might have to toggle the Alternate Display Driver setting in the QuickShow Light Setup function, as discussed later in this document.

QuickShow Light will display images based on your current Windows screen driver. If there is insufficient colour depth in your current driver, it will dither. Dithered images can look coarse and a bit ugly, especially sixteen colour dithers. If your displayed images don't look right, obtain the appropriate super VGA Windows screen driver for your display card and install it.


Registration
Shareware and Registration

QuickShow Light for Windows is neither freeware, shareware or commercial software. It's bookware. If you like QuickShow Light for Windows, please read Steven William Rimmer's new novel The Order, ISBN 1-895268-02-8, published by Jam Ink Publishing. If you enjoy it, tell your friends about it. Send us your comments about The Order or a photocopy of the cover and your receipt from the bookshop where you bought it and we'll consider you a registered user of QuickShow Light for Windows.

Alternately, send us $40.00, the normal registration fee for this package. The book's a lot cheaper, and generally more fun.

If you can't find The Order locally, you can order it through Alchemy Mindworks Inc. The cost is $6.99 plus shipping ($2.50 in Canada, $3.00 to the US, $4.50 international).   We can accept payment by cheque, Visa or American Express. We are:

Alchemy Mindworks Inc.

P.O. Box 500

Beeton, Ontario

CANADA

L0G 1A0

Our ordering line is:	1-800-263-1138 from the US and Canada

1-905-729-4969 from elsewhere

Our FAX line is:	1-905-729-4156

Our BBS line is:	1-905-729-4609

Our CompuServe ID is:	70451,2734

 See BOOKWARE.WRI for complete information.

Registered users of QuickShow Light for Windows are entitled to good karma and a number to shut off the beg notice.

If you want to see additional features in QuickShow Light for Windows, register it. If we had an Arcturian mega-dollar for everyone who has said they'd most certainly register their copy if we'd add just one more thing to it, we could buy ourselves a universe and retire.

Oh yes, should you fail to support this program and continue to use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear itself, shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the nether world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for blood on its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time for the throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to know that.


Heavy
QuickShow Heavy

The existence of a light version of QuickShow Light probably implies that there must be a heavy one about. The full version of QuickShow for Windows includes the facilities of the light version, plus:

- A drag and drop interface to arrange slide shows interactively

- Optional on the fly scaling for large images

- Optional 24-bit reading for Photo CD and JPEG images

- A DOS run-time... it does everything the Windows version does, save for special effects

- Branching and interactive slide shows

- Textured and gradient matts

- More elaborate text and titling options

- ... and quite a bit more.

The complete version of QuickShow for Windows is expected in mid-1994 as of this writing.

One of the reasons we've released QuickShow Light as bookware was to see if there's sufficient interest in this sort of application to warrant the eighteen-hour days and general bartering with the gods involved in completing the full version of the package.

If you register QuickShow Light, you'll be entitled to a discount on the registration fee of the full version of QuickShow for Windows at such time as it's released if you'd like to upgrade to it.

We will be most interested to hear any suggestions registered users of QuickShow Light have for the complete version.


Legal
Legal dogma

Neither the author nor Alchemy Mindworks Inc. assumes responsibility for any damage or loss caused by the use of these programs, however it comes down. If you can think of a way a picture program can cause you damage or loss you've a sneakier mind than mine.

All the registered trademarks used herein are registered to whoever it is that owns them. This notification is given in lieu of any specific list of trademarks and their owners, which would not be as inclusive and would probably take a lot longer to type.

If you register QuickShow Light for Windows, we will assume that you are doing so having tested the shareware version and ascertained that it's suitable for your hardware and requirements. We cannot provide refunds for shareware registration if you subsequently change your mind.

QuickShow Light for Windows, Multimedia Workshop for Windows, Pagan Daybook, Graphic Workshop, Desktop Paint, Image Gallery and GrafCat are trademarks of Alchemy Mindworks Inc.

That's it...


Default
Default Display Characteristics

The default display characteristics of a QuickShow slide show define the delay time, matt colour, image framing, title and effects of any for those images in the show that don't have specific display characteristics assigned to them. You can adjust the default display characteristics by clicking on the Defaults button in the QuickShow window. A dialog will appear. Here's what its items do:

Time delay: Sets the number of seconds between images. Note that this is actually the minimum delay time... it might increase if it takes a while to load the next image in a slide show.

Orientation: Sets the location of the image on your screen, assuming the image is smaller than the screen it will be displayed on.

Image Frame: Defines how the image will be framed. You can have no frame, a simple black frame or various three dimensional frames. Frames with titles will display the title text, to be discussed in a moment. The complex frame with titling may truncate your title text if the text is too long to fit. Note that the framing options assume there's enough room on your screen to draw the image you've asked to display and a frame around it. If the image is too large, some or all of its frame may be invisible.

Effect: The effect field should contain the path to a WAV, MID or AVI file which is to be played when an image is first displayed. Click on the Browse button to locate the file you'd like to use. If the file can't found or can't be played when you run your slide show, it will be ignored. If this field is blank, no effect will be used. Keep in mind that if you assign an effect for a slide show as a default, it will play for every image which uses the default display characteristics.

Title: This is the text which will be displayed below each image if you select an Image Frame option which includes a title.

Loop: If this item is enabled, the slide show will run continuously. When the last image is reached the show will start over. It will keep running until it's aborted with the right mouse button. If this item not enabled, the show will run once and stop.

Colour: This sets the colour for the background matt, that is, the area between your image and the edge of your monitor. It's grey by default. The current background colour will be displayed in the Background Colour field. Note that if you'll be using an Image Frame option with a title, dithered background colours don't make for particularly readable text. Some frame options don't work with some colour choices, and frames will not show up against a black background.


Specific
Specific Display Characteristics

Each image in a slide show can have its own specific characteristics which will override the defaults. To set the specific characteristics for an image, double click on it. A dialog like the one for the Defaults function will appear. Anything you set in this dialog will only affect the image you have double clicked on. There are a few changes in this dialog, to wit:

Use Current Defaults: If this item is selected, the current defaults will be selected and none of the other fields in this dialog will be active. If it's not selected, you can edit the fields in the dialog to assign specific characteristics to this image.

View: Click on this button to see your image as it will appear in a slide show.

A thumbnail of your selected image will appear in the upper right corner of  this dialog if:

- A THN file for the image has previously been created with Graphic Workshop for Windows.

- The image has come from a Kodak Photo CD. Note that as fetching thumbnails from a Photo CD is fairly time consuming, you can switch off thumbnails in this case through the Setup function of QuickShow Light.


Other
Other Functions

To rename files, select all the ones you want to rename and select Rename from the File menu. A dialog will appear for each file, allowing you to enter a new name for it. Note that renamed files will always have the same extensions as their original names had.

To delete files, select all the ones you want to rename and select Delete from the File menu.

The Setup function of the File menu will allow you to enter your name and registration number at such time as you register QuickShow Light, as well as to adjust some of its characteristics. Note that your name and number must match the name and number on the letter we send you. The case, spacing and punctuation matter.

The Use Photo CD Thumbnails setting determines whether the Details dialog will display thumbnails for Photo CD images.

The Alternate Display Driver setting determines how QuickShow Light will display large images. If you encounter images which don't display, or don't display correctly, toggle this. Some super VGA Windows screen drivers get a bit peculiar when they're confronted by large pictures.

When you exit QuickShow Light, your current window location and other parameters will be saved. They'll be restored the next time you run QuickShow Light.

The About dialog for  QuickShow Light  will be a grey window with a unicorn for registered users and a black window with a woodcut of a woman for unregistered users. Registered users can see the unregistered About dialog by holding down the left shift key and selecting About. If you hold down the left shift key and click on the Ok button of the unregistered dialog, a window will appear with the version numbers of the DLLs that  QuickShow Light uses. This may be important if you find odd things happening when you run  QuickShow.


Files
Loading and Saving Slide Shows

You can save a particular set of display characteristics and defaults for the files in a directory as an SHW file. If it's subsequently loaded back into QuickShow Light all the previously tagged files will be retagged and assigned their former display characteristics.

While you can save SHW files anywhere you like, they always pertain to the files in a particular directory. If you load an SHW file from a previous session and some or all of the files it expects to find in your current directory are missing, they'll be ignored.

Note that an SHW file is text... it can be edited with Windows Notepad. Be very careful if you attempt to do so... QuickShow Light can get somewhat cross if it's confronted by a mangled SHW file.

If you wish to create slide shows of files on a CD-ROM, you'll have to store your SHW files somewhere else.

There are two particular SHW files that QuickShow Light looks for when it first boots up or changes directories. If it finds a file called AUTOLOAD.SHW, it will automatically load it. If it finds a file called AUTOEXEC.SHW, it will automatically load and play it.


Support
Technical Support

Please do not call our 800 number for technical support. There is no one there who can answer technical questions. They can only take credit card orders.

Technical support is available at 1-905-729-3831, 10:00am to 5:00pm EST most business days. If you call and get an answering machine... it does happen... please try back later. We are unable to return calls for technical support.

You can also contact us by FAX at 1-905-729-4156, by modem at 1-905-729-4609 or by mail at the address to be found later in this document. Our CompuServe account is 70451,2734.

We will provide limited technical support to unregistered users, at our discretion, to help you evaluate this software.

Please keep in mind that one of the reasons that this package is very inexpensive is that its price does not include the overhead for a large technical support organization. Before you contact us, please read this document in its entirety.

If you contact us for technical support, please be prepared to tell us what type of computer you're using, how much memory it supports, the version of DOS and Windows you're using, what type of display card is in your system, how many colours your current Windows screen driver supports and the nature of the file or files that are giving you trouble.


Formats
Supported File Formats

QuickShow light supports most bitmapped graphic file formats. Here's the complete list:

MacPaint

Monochrome image files from Macintosh systems

GEM/IMG

Primarily used by Ventura Publisher

PC Paintbrush PCX

The native file format of Z-Soft's PC Paintbrush software

CompuServe GIF

Among the most widely used PC image file formats

TIFF

Supports them all, including Group III, IV and LZW

Deluxe Paint/Amiga IFF/LBM

Only supports pure IFF files and Delux Paint LBM files

PC Paint Pictor PIC

Supports them all, including high colour PIC

Truevision Targa

Supports all Targa files

Windows /OS2 BMP/DIB

Supports all BMP files, including those from OS/2

Windows 3 RLE

Supports most Windows RLE files

Microsoft Paint MSP

This is the old monochrome paint format from Windows 2

Halo CUT

This is the very obscure Halo cut format

PFS:First Publisher ART

Only supports uncompressed ART files

JPEG JPG

All JPEG files will be displayed in 256 colours

Kodak Photo-CD

All PCD files will be displayed at PCD_BASE resolution

Sun Raster RAS

These are files from Sun unix workstations

HRZ SSTV

These are high colour slow scan television files

WordPerfect Graphics WPG

Only supports bitmapped WPG files. If your WPG files 	do not display they are vector files, and are not supported by QuickShow Light for Windows.

You can tag up a variety of different file types for a slide show. QuickShow Light will sort them out.

Note that QuickShow Light for Windows does not support vector file formats such as DXF, CGM, CDR, EPS and so on, nor is it likely to in the immediate future.